


the odds the gods would put us all in one spot

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, M/M, Mentions of Death, idk what to say about this Just. Enjoy, this is so bad im Sorry yall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers when he’s nineteen, and it feels like dying, (which, he supposes, it should.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	the odds the gods would put us all in one spot

**Author's Note:**

> me jumping on the reincarnation au bandwagon with my low q writing, y'all

He remembers when he’s nineteen, and it feels like dying, (which, he supposes, it should). He’s in the middle of the street, crossing it to get back to his apartment, and he lurches over. He dismisses it at first, and runs across now, because he’s almost been run over. But the memories keep coming and coming, and he can’t see in front of him. 

 

That’s about when he runs head-first into a tired-looking girl, dark hair down, eyes inquisitive. She doesn’t look distracted, so the collision is clearly all his fault.

“Are you alright?” she asks, “I saw you start to fall over on the street, and you’re still looking faint.”  
“Uh,” he says, and can’t place where he knows her from. There’s too much in his head, he can’t focus.

“What’s your name?” asks the woman. He’s almost convinced she already knows, but that would be impossible. Unless he _does_ know her from somewhere, and he’s just not placing it.

“John,” he says, and his last name escapes him, for some reason, but then, “Laurens.”

 

Oh. That’s not right. It’s weird to correct it, though, so he doesn’t, or he does, because he doesn’t have the space in his head to have any kind of filter. “Ball, actually. John Ball. Fuck.”  


She nods, not unkindly. “I’m Eliza Schuyler,” she says, as if prompting him, and that’s where he knows her. If any of what he’s thinking is real, that is. He tries and fails to hold in a gasp. “Let’s get inside, I think you need it.”

 

She pulls him towards a coffee shop near them. Nothing he’s seeing makes sense, even though he knows it should.

 

“You’re probably very confused right now,” says Schuyler, like she’s reading his mind. “I know the feeling.”

“How’d you know who I was? What’s going on?”

He sounds pathetic, helpless.  
“I recognized you,” she says, “And I saw you start to shake in the middle of the street. I’m just thankful to have found someone who… understands the situation. Other than Aaron.”  
“Aaron… Burr?” he remembers the name, which Schuyler had said with distaste, from somewhere in history class, and somewhere from his own (own?) memory, but can’t place what he did for history. Fought in the war. That’s what he did. So did John. He died in the war. He died in the war.  
“The one and only,” says Schuyler, Eliza, not noticing John’s panic, “He’s an ass.”  
“So I recall.” (John died in the war. He’s dead.)  
“We kept seeing each other, him and I, back then,” she says. “After,” she clarifies, but John’s not sure what she means, still. He plays along nonetheless. “It makes sense that he and I found each other first, I suppose. We outlived almost all of you.”  
“How old—“ (He died at twenty-seven.)

“Ninety-seven,” she says promptly. “I don’t feel like it though.”  
“Don’t look it either, in fairness.”  
She laughs, for a second.

“It’s a pity we never met,” says Eliza, gently. “From reading your letters— what I recall of them, I mean—“  
He’s embarrassed. He doesn’t remember the exacts of what he (he?) may have said to Eliza’s then (then?) husband (a goddamned Founding Father, he recalls,) but they certainly weren’t things anyone should say to a married man. So he apologizes.

“I understand,” she says. “I understand.”

 

Eliza pulls out her phone, sends a text or an email or something, John can’t tell. 

“Go up and order,” she says, in a considerably different tone than the minute before. “I’ll float you if you don’t have your wallet.”  
“It’s good,” he says, and grabs a ten from his pocket, flashes it toward her to prove it, which gets a laugh from Eliza. It takes him a moment to understand why, but then he starts laughing too. It’s ridiculous, the situation they’re in. He can’t imagine how she’s handling it. 

“You want anything?” he asks.

“Chai would be nice.”  
He orders himself a latte, and sits back down with Eliza, who thanks him quietly.  
  
“Do you have questions about the… situation?”  
“Too many.”  
“Yeah. I’m not keen to figure everything out, to be honest. Too confusing.”  
“What d’you know for sure, though?”  
“That at least three people, present company included, can remember being people involved in the American Revolution. Which is, simply put, kind of messed up.”  


A man about John’s age calmly walks into the establishment around this time— John’s brain registers him as Burr. Burr sits next to Eliza, and says, firmly, “What?”

John waves.

“Damn,” says Burr.

 

“So, John,” says Eliza, after Burr has gone up to order. “What do you do?”  
“The fuckers in here eavesdropping are gonna think y’all are-“  
“Whatever.”  
“I’m in premed at Columbia.”

“Oh, you go to Columbia? So do I! I’m an education major, though, so I guess it makes sense I never see you around—“ for the first time, she actually sounds the age she looks.  
“I think I’ve seen you in the dining hall.”

 

This is an inconvenient time, of course, to remember where Burr had been mentioned in history class, as Burr is back with his coffee. He feels himself getting angrier by the millisecond, but he can’t blow up, he knows, he can’t. In a bar, he would, but here? Well, he was always taught to not make a scene.

 

If Eliza can forgive him, John thinks, so can he. (He didn’t even have to live through Alexander’s death— maybe— maybe he deserved it. Getting shot. He can’t remember, even, what Alexander’s role in the government was— Vice President? Secretary of State? Something like that.)

 

He restrains himself.

 

“So,” says Burr, interrupting John’s thoughts. “Didn’t think _you’d_ show up. Not that it’s bad that it’s you.” Burr’s voice is almost melodic, and his words are calculated. John decides to google him later.

“Nice to see you too, Aaron,” he says. Burr’s eyebrows raise at the use of his first name. “What d’you do?”  
“I wait tables, plus, I TA,” he says. “Have you been in the news, recently?”

“Like, two years ago?” John says. “My dad was a senator in South Carolina— I got kicked out. For being gay, y’know, the typical South Carolina story. Had news coverage for like, two weeks. I was on the Daily Show.”  
“That _was_ you!” says Eliza, almost sharply. “Oh my God—“   
“Doesn’t matter,” says John, “Fuckin’ asshole.”

“Charming use of language,” Burr says. “But I’m sorry about what happened.”  


After some uncomfortable small talk followed by silence, Eliza asks him where he lives.   
“I, um. I live on campus.”  
“Here’s our address,” says Eliza, who hands him a napkin, “Feel free to visit any time.”

“You live together?” he asks, because he can’t picture living with his husband’s murderer.

Eliza nods, “We get along better than you’d expect.”  
“Looking for him?” They all know who “him” refers to. His name isn’t necessary.  
Burr bites his lip, and Eliza shakes her head no.  
They go their separate ways.

 

He doesn’t visit the two. Decides it’s not worth it.  
  
And then Burr finds him at work, looking exhausted. 

 

“Hey,” says John.

“You,” Burr responds. “Never got your number.”  
“Oh,” he says, “Check out first.”  
  
Burr buys a journal and a copy of _Slaughterhouse Five_. 

 

John writes his number on the receipt. “I don’t pick up often, texting’s better.”  
“I need to tell you something, can’t do it out loud anyway.”

 

Five minutes later, his phone buzzes. Unknown number.

 

_Found Ham_

 

**you told eliza tho?**

 

_No_

 

**where**

 

_Class I’m TAing. Freshman. Won’t shut up._

 

**typical of him**

**does he remember?  
**

_Hasn’t punched me yet, so. Don’t think so._

 

**fair**

 

He gets a series of texts over the next few weeks from Burr about Alexander— who goes by Alex, now, apparently.

_He’s going to get himself murdered if he keeps picking fights_

 

**he picked one with you, you mean**

 

_Shut up. And no. Some other student. He keeps calling me sir. I’ve befriended him? I think._

 

**fuck**

**you should tell elizabeth**

 

_…_

_How do I tell her that I found and befriended her husband_

 

**my boyfriend**

**is boyfriend even the right term**

**lover**

**boytoy**

**my revolutionary war boytoy**

**anyways you told me you can tell her just as easily**

 

_Do I introduce them? She’ll want to meet him._

 

**oh i’d love to be there for that**

**tell me if you do**

**INVITE HIM TO YOUR PLACE**

 

Burr sends him the time and date when Hamilton is coming over. He tells his roommate (Sam Rodriguez, fellow sophmore, chem major, uptight as all hell but otherwise a decent man,) that he’s going out to meet up with friends, to which Same responds “what friends?” and laughs.   


He arrives an hour early, and Eliza Schuyler embraces him warmly. She and Burr’s place is small and messy, half-finished mugs of coffee all around and crumpled papers stacked unevenly on tables and the floor. 

  
“So what do we do when he shows up?” John asks.

“Be subtle? Act like normal humans who want to meet him?”  
“I meant, do Eliza here and I have free reign to flirt?”  
“Subtle flirting,” says Eliza, definitively. “ _Aaron_ won’t tell me what he looks like.”  
“ _He_ doesn’t stay still enough to take pics. Like I said, short, long hair.”  
“Any other details?  
“He’s Latino? I don’t know, wait and see for yourself.”

  
There’s a knock on the door thirty minutes later— Burr says “he’s always early,” and then, yelling towards the door “Come on in!”

 

John and Eliza exchange looks as a disheveled looking kid with wide eyes and messy hair strolls in, looking jittery. He’s cute, John decides, and definitely, definitely Alexander. He remembers cold nights and warm bodies and secret letters and it’s like falling in love again and again and again. 

“Alex Fawcett,” snaps John out of his stupor. “You are?”  
“John, uh, John Ball. Pleasure to meet you, Alex.”

 

Eliza is beaming, almost in tears, and gives her last name as Church, says “Aaron has told me so much about you.”  
“Are you two-?”  
“Oh, God no—“ says Eliza, and Burr recoils at the thought, “We’re just roommates. And John’s just an old friend of the both of us.”

 

Discussion passes quickly, and Alexander is overflowing with passion about nearly any subject, which Burr will usually cut him off on. He gets mad when he realizes where he’s seen John in the news, argues with Eliza on Beyoncés best album, and criticizes Burr’s political opinions (or, he says, the lack thereof.) It’s halfway through the discussion on that new stupid cat game when things take a turn for the worst. 

 

Alexander just passes out, on the couch, after a slight gagging motion.

 

“D’you think-?”  
“It’s what happened to me,” says Burr, “I woke up about an hour later? Said my sister.”

“So we wait,” says Eliza, “You should leave the room, Aaron, just in case.”  
“I can take a punch,” says Aaron.  
“Do you want to?”  
Burr takes his leave immediately after.

 

Eliza’s grabbing water when Alex wakes up, so John is left to deal with a disoriented founding father. Maybe.

 

“You alright, Alex?” is his first sentence, and Alex squints.

“John,” he says.  
“Yeah.”  
“My God—“  
“Yeah. Yo, Eliza? Hurry up.”  
“Eliza— my Eliza— _the_ Eliza.”  
“Most definitely.”  
“And _you_ , and, and. And Burr.”

“Okay, so you definitely—“  
“ _Burr._ ”  
“Yes, it’s Aaron Burr. He’s here. You’re taking this really well.”  
“It’s not like it doesn’t _make since—_ like, logically, it doesn’t, but emotionally, it one-hundred percent computes that this was a part of me and, oh my God, who else do you all _know,_ and why are you three living here—“  
“I’m not living here, Alexander, but Eliza and Aaron found each other first and kind of felt the need to—“  
“It’s _Burr,_ John, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but he shot me dead. In a duel.”  
“That’s all most people know about you, hon’.”

“Hon’?”

“Yeah, I’m going to fucking shower you in pet names until your wife comes out of the kitchen, babe.”

“It’s condescending, and we’re not _technically_ married, anyways, I just met her _today,_ Laurens.”

 

As if on cue, Eliza enters, “Alexander, here’s some water and um, blankets, and-“  
Eliza is tackled in an embrace. John smiles. She outlived him by what, fifty years? She deserves him.

 

“I can’t believe Burr is my TA,” Alex says, eventually. “I can’t believe I became friends with _Burr._ ”  
“I can,” says Eliza, “And I haven’t stopped laughing about it.”  
“Neither can I,” says John, “It’s incredible. Like the Fates determined the perfect situation”  
“Can I speak to him?” asks Alex, “Real quick. I have a few things to say about him that I never got around to and I really feel it’s necessary to at least—“  
“Don’t want to explain anything to the emergency room,” says Eliza.

“I can administer medical care, technically,” says John, kind of wanting to see how this ends up, but he catches Eliza’s glare, “But I don’t want to. He regrets what he did, Alex.”  
“ _Sure._ ”  


It goes on like this for a while, the two of them awkwardly restraining the man they once loved from finding and legitimately fighting a school employee. He tries flattery, and flirtation, and cursing them out, which only stops when Burr walks back into the room with a brief “Shut up, Hamilton.”

 

“Not helping,” says Eliza, “In the slightest, Aaron.”

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for this!
> 
> follow me on twitter @farmerefuted or on tumblr @oceanicairline


End file.
